What the Eskom tariff increase record actually shows
The Eskom tariff increase record since 2008 is steeper than almost any other price a South African household pays. Aggregate standard tariffs have risen 973% over that period, at an average of 14.5% a year, while consumer inflation rose 241%, at about 5% a year.
In cash terms, Eskom’s average price moved from 24.7 cents a kilowatt hour in 2008/09 to 241.64 cents by March 2026. That is 9.8 times higher.
Set against inflation, the real increase is smaller but still severe. Indexing the two figures against each other, electricity costs about 3.1 times what it did in 2008 in real terms. That calculation is Southafriworld’s.
A worked illustration on Eskom’s average price: 600 kilowatt hours would have cost about R148.20 at the 2008/09 rate and about R1 449.84 at the March 2026 rate. That is an illustration on Eskom’s average price, not a municipal bill, and most households buy through a municipality at higher rates.
Before 2008 this was not happening. Eskom’s tariff adjustments tracked inflation reasonably closely from at least 1994. The break came when Nersa approved 14.2% for the 2009 financial year, then a further 13.3% in June 2008 after Eskom applied for a 60% revision, taking the year’s total to 27.5%. A 31.3% increase followed for 2010, then increases in the mid-twenties through to 2013.
Eskom asked for 36%. Nersa gave it 12.74%
This is the part that rarely appears alongside the 973% figure, and leaving it out produces an unfair account.
| Year from 1 April | Eskom’s request | Increase implemented |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Under a previous determination | 18.65% |
| 2024 | Under a previous determination | 12.72% |
| 2025 | 36.15% | 12.74% |
| 2026 | 11.81% | 8.76% |
| 2027 | 9.10% | Not yet determined |
Eskom’s sixth multi-year price determination asked Nersa for total revenue of R446 billion, R495 billion and R537 billion across three financial years. The regulator approved a fraction of the first request.
Eskom’s position is that tariffs have lagged its actual cost of supply. Chief financial officer Calib Cassim put the gap between prevailing tariffs and cost-reflective tariffs at “about 25% to 30% in real terms” in August 2024.
Eskom has argued since 2020 that “the price of electricity must migrate towards cost-reflectivity”, warning that without it the taxpayer carries the shortfall. Its state-guaranteed debt stood at R328 billion at the end of its latest financial year, much of it tied to the Medupi, Kusile and Ingula build and transmission expansion.
Those increases compound. Taking 2023 through 2026 together, the four approved increases compound to about 64%. Adding the percentages instead gives 52.87%, which is the figure that circulates and which understates the effect on a bill. This is the pressure that has been building alongside the April 2026 increase.
The best generation performance in six years
Eskom is simultaneously having its strongest operating run in years.
The energy availability factor stood at 67.96% for the financial year to 17 September 2026, the highest year-to-date level in six years and 5.79 percentage points up on the 62.17% recorded over the same period last year. Weekly availability reached 72.74% between 11 and 17 September.
South Africa passed 490 consecutive days without load shedding on 21 September 2026. The last planned outage was on 16 May 2025.
The financial effect is large. Eskom said “improved performance reduced diesel expenditure by R4.80b”, a fall of 80.95%, from R5.93 billion to R1.13 billion between 1 April and 17 September. Open cycle gas turbine generation fell about 85.33% year on year.
The utility reported 8 716MW in cold reserve because of excess capacity. For the evening peak on 21 September, demand was forecast at 22 081MW against 27 500MW available.
Load reduction is also receding. The number of affected customers has fallen from 1.69 million to 247 617, about 3.4% of Eskom’s customer base, with seven provinces now clear. This is a markedly better picture than the one that prompted warnings of a renewed energy shock earlier this year.
The customers who can afford to leave are leaving
Eskom’s own annual reports list declining sales volumes among the reasons tariffs have risen. That matters, because the departures are accelerating.
Belle Rive Farm on the Vaal River in the Free State is building a 4.89MWp solar plant and a 20MWh battery system to run entirely off grid across more than 2 000 hectares, with 17 kilometres of medium-voltage reticulation. It will be the country’s largest off-grid agricultural installation.
Owner Stanley de Beer said the decision came down to certainty. “There’s no room for power interruptions when you’re managing cold storage” at that scale, he said. The farm’s battery alone is about 5% of the roughly 400MWh of annual commercial, industrial and agricultural storage that GreenCape projects for the country.
In September 2026 the City of Cape Town became the first South African municipality to sign power purchase agreements with an independent power producer, sourcing from two solar projects at around 20% below Eskom pricing.
Neither decision was driven by load shedding, which has not occurred for more than sixteen months. Both were driven by price.
The mechanism is circular. Higher tariffs push large users off the grid. Falling sales volumes are then cited as a reason tariffs must rise. Households that cannot fund solar, and small businesses on municipal supply, stay on the grid and carry a larger share of fixed costs. Those same households are already absorbing sustained pressure on borrowing costs, and the shift to private generation has brought its own problems, including syndicates targeting installed solar equipment.
What happens at the next price determination
Eskom is preparing its seventh multi-year price determination, which will set its allowable revenue from the 2029 financial year. It has said it will ask Nersa to restructure the retail tariff to be both more cost-reflective for the utility and more affordable for consumers and businesses.
Those two objectives have historically pulled against each other, and Eskom has not published how it proposes to reconcile them. No submission date has been announced.
Three numbers will decide what households pay. What Eskom requests. What Nersa approves. And whether the R4.80 billion diesel saving and the 8 716MW in cold reserve are reflected in the application at all.
The 9.10% increase Eskom requested for the year from 1 April 2027 has not been determined. Until it is, the last confirmed figure remains the 8.76% that took effect on 1 April 2026.
HOW WE REPORTED THIS CROSS-CHECKED
- This article was built from Eskom's own generation performance update for the period 1 April to 17 September 2026, published through the South African Government News Agency on 20 September 2026 and read in full, and from Eskom's published MYPD6 revenue application setting out the increases it requested for its 2026 to 2028 financial years.
- The comparison between what Eskom requested and what was approved was assembled by setting the percentages in that application against the increases actually implemented on 1 April 2025 and 1 April 2026, because the difference between the two is material to any fair account of why prices have risen.
- The real-terms figure of about 3.1 times is a Southafriworld calculation that indexes the reported 973% nominal tariff rise against the reported 241% rise in consumer prices over the same period, and it is labelled in the article because the headline nominal figure overstates the change relative to general inflation.
- The four-year cumulative increase of about 64% is a Southafriworld calculation that compounds the increases of 18.65%, 12.72%, 12.74% and 8.76%, and the article notes that simply adding those percentages gives a lower and less accurate 52.87%.
- The monthly cost illustration uses Eskom's reported average price per kilowatt hour rather than any residential or municipal tariff, is presented as a worked example on a stated consumption figure, and is not a claim about what any household pays. No comment was sought from Eskom, Nersa, the City of Cape Town or any party named.
- This article was drafted with AI assistance and the facts, figures and quotations were checked against the primary source by the editor before publication.
